Giving Hope
The Peace for Paul Foundation (PFP) is a non-profit organization based out of Uganda that focusses on providing education-through University and to enable the children who enter the program to break the cycle of poverty they were born into.
Every child deserves the chance
to break the cycle of poverty that they were born into
How it started
In 2009 Heidi Kaltur volunteered at a local orphanage in Uganda. One day while having lunch in the town of Jinja, she met Paul. She spotted a group of children outside who were hungry and alone. As soon as she acknowledged the group, they came to her table asking for a bite to eat; she decided to hand over her lunch and let them take it. The group ran off with their score, but Paul remained to thank Heidi.
Heidi came to know Paul and she spent as much time as she could with him and the other children he lived with in the slums of Masese. The children were all from the Karamojong tribe of Uganda. The Karamojong are a nomadic tribe devastated by the effects of the modernization of Africa. As the Karamojong’s livelihood deteriorated, many were forced to move into the larger city centers where they were greeted with coldness, distrust, and an epidemic of poverty and homelessness was created.
"There was one child who did not continue on with the team, but ran back to my side. Our eyes met and with great sincerity he managed a heartfelt “thank you.”
Peace For Paul
When it was time for Heidi to head back to the United States, she promised Paul she would help. Within months of returning home, Heidi and co-founder Ellie Cox formed PFP. With their 501c3 status in hand, Heidi and Ellie’s hope for a way to help vulnerable children in Uganda became a reality. Every year since. Peace for Paul has continued to grow and come to the rescue of more children.
Every child deserves a future
How it works
The Peace for Paul Foundation operates three family homes.
- Love Home for Girls provides a safe, loving family environment for girls between the ages of 2 and 18.
- Hope Home for Boys provides a safe, loving family environment for boys between the ages of 2 and 18.
- Peace Home provides a home base for young adults in the resettlement program.
The Main Program
PFP provides housing, food, clothing, and security in a healthy environment with support, supervision and socialization. The Peace for Paul children are given the necessary tools to grow and to become functioning citizens of their community, in order to break the cycle of poverty they were born into.
The Junior program
The Peace For Paul Junior Program helps a larger number of needy Ugandan children obtain educations. The children benefiting from the PFP Junior Program live in the neighborhood and are unable to afford school fees, uniform fees and school supplies. Because they have families to look after them, these children do not live on-site in the PFP homes. Rather, these children live with their families and are sponsored through PFP for education and medical costs only.
The Resettlement Program
In most cases, when a child is enrolled in the “Main Program”, it is because they no longer have living parents or are sadly, not wanted or would not be safe at home with their living relatives.
It is extremely important to maintain family ties, and whenever possible the PFP team works to find safe, healthy family members with which to resettle children. They provide education and support to the relatives and provide the children with all basic necessities, education and medical support. This takes the financial burden of caring for a child off of the relatives shoulders, and allows them to provide the most important thing: family and a sense of belonging for the child in the care. The PFP social work team provides routine home visits to ensure the safety and well being of the child that has been resettled.
In cases where children are not able to safely be resettled, the PFP social work team encourages safe, supervised visits with relatives so that the child may grow up knowing where they came from and maintain connection to their family members.
‘A Hand Up’ program
Besides supporting children, PFP also empowers vulnerable young adults in the community. The goal is to enable them to become functioning members of society and to continue the cycle of giving and hope. Recipients of this scholarship are vulnerable young men and women who are determined, hard working, skilled and who have a desire to give back. The recipients do not receive a hand out–rather but they receive a hand up. A Hand Up Program provides financial assistance and mentoring to hard-working adults and provides a means to help them improve their own lives by allowing them to complete their education, learn a trade or start a business. Applicants are expected to continue the cycle of giving in their own community.
A fantastic organization that I fully believe in
In recent years the spotlight has highlighted the dark sides of children orphanages, therefore I must stress that Peace For Paul is not an orphanage. At PFP, children are supported throughout life towards higher education. The outlook of the young men and women who had been in the program for years (some for decades) was so incredibly bright, it became clear that they were the result of an organization that puts people first and operates from the power of love.